Social media ‘addiction’ in Asia

Apparently, social usage in Asia is generally above the global average. Some observers have described it as an “addiction”.

Internet penetration across Asia is growing exponentially as more people just want to get onto social media.

Simon Kemp, founder and CEO of marketing consultancy Kepios, said that in 2018, nearly a million people went online for the first time every single day.

Let that stat sink in. 365 million people went online in 2018 alone.

“We see that the desire to use social media is actually one of the main things that brings people online for the very first time,” he explained.

Social media is “one of the biggest drivers of the time that we spend online as well as the number of users using the internet”, said Kemp.

He added that only 17 million out of the world’s 3.5 billion active social media users are not accessing the internet by mobile.

Kemp explained that in terms of eligible penetration, or share of users aged 13 and above who use social media, the worldwide average is 58%.

Since the the majority of APAC markets are above this global average, he says this is “fairly demonstrative of the fact that a lot of people in APAC are totally addicted to social media”.

While Facebook and YouTube remain the world’s top social platforms, new regional players are emerging – like TikTok, the Chinese short-form video-sharing app which boasts more than 500 million users.

TikTok is currently stepping up its efforts to woo users and advertisers in small-town India, where its engagement rates are reported to far outweigh those seen on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Source: WARC